EAST COAST RAILWAY

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4740, 20 August 1924, Page 2

EAST COAST RAILWAY

THE WAIHI-ATIIENBEE SECTION. TRAINS ABOUT END OF YEAR. The railhead of the Waihi-Athenree section of the East Coast Main Trunk railway line has now been carried to within about three parts of a mile of the station yard at Athenree, and the laying of the line will be completed in the course of five or six weeks. From the Waihi end the line has been ballasted for about half its length, .and a start will be made to ballast’the balance of the span from the Athenree end at an early date. The metal will come from the Public Works Departments quarry near Athenree, where blasting operations were recently carried out with a big charge of gelatine, which broke many thousands of yards of stone. The face is now being stripped, and the stonecrusher plant purchased from the Waihi Borough Council is being installed With the installation of the plant employment will be provided for several men at the quarry, and it is anticipated that the remainder of the line will be ballasted well before the end of the year. Asked as to when the section would probably be opened for regular traffic tiie engineer in charge, Mr R. RDawber, stated that nothing official was yet known as to the intention of the department in his direction, but he tliouglit it was not unlikely that a service would be started about the end of the year or very early in 1925. Touching on the extension of the line to the fourteen-mile peg near Katikati the engineer said it was anticipated that this portion would he completed towards the close of the summer of next year. With the completion.of the permanent way between Waihi and Athenree there will be a reduction of workers, but by then there will, no doubt, be openings for any discharged men seeking employment on the KatikatiTe Puna section, which is to be constructed by the Armstrong-Whitworth Company. This firm will let nome of the works on contract. —Telegraph.